What is the purpose of docks (e.g. the Apple or Vista one, ObjectDock etc.) on the desktop?
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Foxx (
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)
April 2nd, 2010
By dock I mean the the bar with a line of shortcuts, usually located at the top or bottom of a desktop.
What do these docks accomplish? What are the advantages? Disadvantages? Is there a good reason to have program shortcuts on a dock instead of directly on the desktop?
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6 Answers
Unlike shortcuts on the desktop, by default the dock is always visible.
On the desktop you have to close windows to get to them, in a dock all you have to do is place your mouse at the bottom of the screen and the dock will appear over the top of any open windows/programs.
Also on a PC the bar at the bottom of the screen takes up (if only a small bit) of screen that with a dock could be used for larger windows.
Advantage is that it’s a pretty way to see a bunch of icons.
Disadvantage is that it’s annoying. I much rather just open my start menu and have all my shortcuts there.
CPU-devouring eye candy, pure and simple.
Shortcuts all in one convenient place. An advantage, everything is in the same place. Disadvantage.. It’s a waste of space on your drive because you can just find it under teh start button.
It takes up a lot less space to have a few 16×16 icons that expand when you mouse over them than it is to have a whole flotilla of full-sized icons all over your desktop.
And to those people who recommend the Start Menu, that is an extra click and some scrolling I don’t have to do with RocketDock. My screen has more pixels horizontally than vertically, and I have enough icons on the dock to where that makes a difference.
@Fenris Only if you have an old computer with little RAM.
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